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Mate fidelity and parentage in Cory's shearwater Calonectris diomedea ‐ field studies and DNA fingerprinting
Author(s) -
SWATSCHEK I.,
RISTOW D.,
WINK M.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
molecular ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.619
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1365-294X
pISSN - 0962-1083
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-294x.1994.tb00059.x
Subject(s) - shearwater , biology , zoology , ecology , seabird , predation
Field studies on Cory's shearwater Calonectris diomedea , which were carried out in a breeding colony in the Aegean Sea between 1989 and 1993, revealed that almost all breeding mates stay together over many consecutive years. Mates usually changed when one partner disappeared (e.g. through death), whereas ‘divorce’ occurred at a rate of 2.7%. Since birds are nesting at very close quarters, the potential for extrapair copulation (EPC) and subsequent extrapair fertilization (EPF) seems to be high. Multilocus DNA fingerprints were used to determine the true parentage of 46 offspring (broods contain a single chick only) from 29 pairs (few pairs were studied in two and three successive years). There were no cases of extrapair paternity.